


The Art of Investigation

by raritysdiamonds



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Bittersweet, Developing Friendships, Drawing, Everyone Needs A Hug, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Crush, i think??, too fluffy for angst too angsty for fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27861381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raritysdiamonds/pseuds/raritysdiamonds
Summary: “I don’t think you killed him.”Dib’s head jerked up as he blinked in bewilderment, as if that was the last thing he expected to hear. “You...don’t?”“Nope!” Keef smiled again, pretty certain now that he was on the right track. “You miss him.”(Keef just wants a friend. Dib just wants the truth.They might have more in common than they thought.)
Relationships: Dib & Keef (Invader Zim), Dib/Keef (Invader Zim), Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 59





	The Art of Investigation

**Author's Note:**

> so I started having feelings about Keef and... *big shrugging noises* it got gay and mildly angsty, what can I say? Thanks to the wonderful [Korbyn](http://kordrawszadr.tumblr.com) for betaing and helping me out with this!! 
> 
> Thanks for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts! <3

All Keef had ever wanted, for as long as he could remember, was a best friend. They had to be out there somewhere – he wished for them every year on his birthday when he blew out his candles!

On his first day of kindergarten, Keef’s mom promised him that if he just kept being his adorable self, all the other kids would love him just as much as she did. Keef made a promise to himself that, even when it didn’t seem like that was true, he’d always keep smiling and never give up trying to find his bestest friend. He waved at his classmates’ stink-eyes, happily handed over his lunch money, and even laughed when they shoved him into lockers, treating it all like one big, fun, painful game. If he kept being a good sport, he hoped, maybe someday they’d let him play for real. 

And things kinda did get better! At least, by the time they reached middle skool, his bullies left him alone; they said he creeped them out and it was no fun picking on someone who just kept inviting you to have lunch with them. Keef was relegated to the ‘loser’s table’, which wasn’t a very nice name, but at least he could keep hoping that  _ one _ day, Gretchen would say yes when he asked her to play jump rope. 

But then Zim showed up – and  _ he _ was the one who asked  _ Keef _ to be his  _ best friend _ ! 

Well, it was more of a demand, really, but even though Zim’s ‘best friend test’ was a little on the nearly-impossible, horribly-painful side – Keef had  _ won  _ it. He'd never won anything before! Never had he been deemed the best, or even the worst, at  _ anything _ (one time, Ms. Bitters wrote on his report card: “acceptably average, smiles too much, requires more work on spirit-crushing”). Yet, for a brief (but wonderful) time, his wish came true. 

Zim let Keef sit next to him! He allowed him the extraordinary privilege of carrying his books! He stood in the playground and  _ proudly _ declared Keef his  _ best friend,  _ and Keef felt his heart swell with so much joy that he was sure he would burst into a shower of disgusting, but happy, organ confetti. 

Keef would have done anything for his best friend. He’d have given Zim his entire stuffed poodle collection if he asked him to, but he already had a dog. And then he said he didn’t need Keef anymore, but he couldn’t accept that –  _ everyone _ needed a best friend, even if they didn’t realize it, right? If he kept trying hard to make Zim happy and show him how much he cared, maybe he’d change his mind, and they’d finally go to the circus and be happy and stay best friends forever! 

Zim didn’t change his mind, though. In fact, he became even more screechy and scratchy and bitey than he usually was. He also kept running away and hiding in trees for some reason, which made it difficult (but not impossible!) to shower him with best friend cupcakes. It was somewhere around Keef’s fourth case of rabies that the world started to get all fuzzy and flickery. When he finally woke up, Keef could see again. He could see Zim again, and he could see the truth. 

The truth hurt, even more than the chunk Squirrel-Zim had taken off of his ear, but Keef still had hope. He hoped that, maybe if Zim learned more about friendship, he’d come back to him after all. He just wanted his first and only friend to be happy. 

After Keef, Zim didn’t have any more friends. He did, however, have Dib.

Dib Membrane was crazy – everyone knew that – and he was  _ mean _ . He called Zim an “evil alien” just because he had a healthy interest in the Earth’s defense systems, and a skin condition that  _ happened _ to make his skin green (and probably caused his ears and nose to fall off too). At first, Keef tried to stick up for his green friend, but after the first fifteen times, he noticed that Zim seemed happier fighting with Dib than playing with his ”best friend”. He never really got upset when Dib insulted him; he yelled a lot, sure, but he also teased, gloated, taunted, and  _ laughed _ like he never did with Keef.

Maybe that hurt a little, too, watching Zim come alive with Dib while he either ignored, or was repulsed by, everyone else in their class. But Keef wasn’t mean. He wasn’t even mad at Zim for taking his eyes – after the squirrel incident, he could actually see  _ better _ and even zoom in if he concentrated hard enough. Maybe Zim was the wake-up call he needed to realize that, sometimes, people just really didn’t want to be friends, and no amount of cupcakes would change that. Keef actually had a lot to thank Zim for if he thought about it! He’d be a better friend now if –  _ when _ someone gave him a chance. 

He never did get to thank Zim, though, because one fateful day in senior year, he didn’t show up to skool. Keef wasn’t too worried, though, considering how often Zim was out sick. It only started to seem off when he didn’t see Zim for weeks. What was definitely off was when Keef walked past Zim’s house – sometimes GIR would wave to him. Keef missed GIR more than he missed Zim, sometimes – and it was gone. The whole house – vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed. But Keef hadn’t had imaginary friends for years – he  _ knew _ Zim was real, and so did everyone else at skool! They must be just as confused and worried about what had happened to him as Keef was.

“...Who?” 

“Oh yeah, the green dude! He sure did love organs...”

“Where’d he go? Maybe he went back to  _ space _ in his  _ alien spaceship _ , huh, Dib?!”

“No way – the freak’s probably got him chained up in his basement!”

A bunch of students snickered, but Dib didn’t acknowledge them from his spot across the playground. He didn’t even glance up from whatever he was scribbling. Dib didn’t really do the whole crazy ranting thing anymore; he barely even spoke at all, now Keef thought about it – not since...

_ Oh.  _ Keef froze, his near-permanent smile fading as the realization hit him. He didn’t want to believe their taunts could actually be true, but if anyone could be behind Zim’s mysterious disappearance; if anyone might be capable of acting on all those disturbingly specific threats they’d thrown back and forth over the years…What if Dib really  _ had _ done something horrible to his enemy – something so horrible it made Zim’s whole house disappear?

If no one else was going to investigate, then Keef would – he owed Zim that much for their one day of best-friendship. He’d just have to be subtle about it, so he waited for the bell to ring and caught Dib as everyone else was heading back to class. 

“Hey, buddy! How are you–”

“ _ Stop.”  _ Dib held up his hand before Keef could finish his sentence, glowering down at him like a vampire that had been pulled out of his coffin too soon. “I know what you’re gonna say, and no, I  _ didn’t _ autopsy him, okay? I didn’t poison his muffins, or throw him in the city cesspool, or clap him to death with erasers. I don’t have him locked up in my basement, or whatever else you’ve heard, and I have no idea where he is! So you can stop your whole stupid  _ Keef  _ thing and quit pretending like we’re…” He practically spat the last word, face screwed up in disgust like it was poison, “ _ friends _ .”

He shoved past Keef and stormed inside, coat streaming dramatically behind him, and the investigation was over before it had begun. Keef scratched his head and blinked at the spot where Dib had been. Something in his gut told him not to go after him, and his gut was usually right, so he put the investigation on hold and decided to focus on staying positive. Tomorrow was another day!

On Wednesdays he had art, and that had always been his favourite. When he sat down with a blank canvas, he could make the world the way it should be, bright and bursting with colour. People, animals and fantastical creatures all smiling and laughing together, full of happiness and hope. He used to fantasise about having superpowers, making dreams reality with the flick of his paintbrush, and he still strived to bring out the beauty in everything – even a single rotting banana, which was the best the skool could offer for a still life. Maybe one day, someone would look at his art and feel happy and hopeful, too. 

When Ms. Bitters announced they’d be pairing up to paint each other’s portraits (or “stare at each other’s acne-ridden faces for a few hours so I don’t have to”), Keef looked around eagerly as the class swarmed around to switch seats, but everyone seemed to have been paired off already.

Well...almost everyone. 

“Wonderful,” Ms Bitters muttered, every syllable dripping with disdain. “Keef, you’re with Dib. If I still had the capacity, I’d be wondering which of you to feel sorrier for.”

Keef nodded, smiling despite the knot of apprehension in his stomach as he glanced over at Dib; sat on the opposite side of the room, alone, making no move to acknowledge his presence. He didn’t protest their teacher’s decision, though, which was...something! Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad – even if Dib still hated him, he’d at least be an interesting subject. A challenge. And Keef always rose to a challenge, no matter how hopeless – or scary – it may have seemed. 

This time, he waited until Dib was digging around in his locker to break the ice. His face was obscured from view as Keef walked up to him, taking slow steps like one might approach an unpredictable wild animal. 

“So I guess it’s just us again – art buddy…?” Keef wound a stray curl around his finger, hoping Dib wasn’t going to yell at him again.

“I already told you,” he said, almost eerily calm, and Keef almost winced when he finally turned to look at him; pale and pinched, dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in days, weeks, maybe months, “you don’t have to do this. You already know what I look like, I know what you look like. It’s not the 1700s, we don’t have to sit for portraits any more – we have photos, we can just do our own thing.”

“Huh?” Keef blinked, a surprised chuckle escaping him. “Don’t be silly – it’s not just about what you look like! A good portrait is about  _ capturing _ the subject, who you are, what you love, the light inside that makes you unique and special! I can’t do you justice just by looking at a photo – we have to hang out, talk, get to know each other! Share all our innermost thoughts, most intimate fears and deepest desires! Or at least what makes us happy...?”

He braced himself for Dib to either tell him to get lost (or something more colourful) or walk away, but he just heaved a sigh as he slammed his locker shut – and then it hit Keef what had really changed. Before, Dib had always had this spark, this fire of self-righteous determination and stubborn conviction that lit up his face, whether he was exchanging insults with Zim or trying to convince the class of some wild theory or other. But now – it was like all that passion had fizzled out, there was nothing there, no will to fight left in him. He just looked tired, more like a sad puppy than a creepy creature of the night. Keef sort of wanted to wrap him in a blanket and make him hot cocoa. 

“You seriously wanna hear about that stuff?” Dib tilted his head with an incredulous little snort, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes as though determining whether he was being pranked; Keef nodded, his own eyes big and hopeful, every atom in his body practically radiating sincerity. “...Fine, I guess. What do you wanna know?”

But after that – unlike with Zim – it didn’t take much prodding on Keef’s part to get Dib to talk about, well, everything. All the weird and wonderful creatures he was tracking, ghosts and Bigfeet and Mothmen (oh my!), all his theories and investigations and how much he hated some guy called Batflaps. Keef learned a lot – mostly, he learned that Dib wasn’t half as scary as he sometimes seemed. Even if Keef couldn’t always follow exactly what he was talking about, it was nice just having someone to hang out with, who didn’t automatically flinch away from him in disgust. He liked listening to Dib talk about his paranormal stuff; how animated and intense he was, all the pacing and dramatic hand gestures, and how when Keef asked a question his eyes lit up like he’d been waiting years to answer it. 

Dib even came over to Keef’s house after skool to work on the project; his mom kept trying to interrupt them with squash and cookies, to his embarrassment, but Dib didn’t laugh or tease him about it, he just said it was nice that Keef’s mom cared so much, a faint glimmer of wistfulness in his eye that disappeared in a blink before he went off on another tangent. 

“- but not only was that theory discredited  _ years _ ago, it’s  _ so _ obvious he faked the whole thing! His ‘Jersey devil,’ was  _ literally _ a potato on a string!” He sketched furiously as he spoke, voice rising with indignation on every word. “And somehow  _ I’m _ the one who – hey, it’s not funny, I’m serious!”

A potato on a string  _ did _ sound pretty funny, but that wasn’t the reason Keef was smiling. “I know, sorry, it’s not that !” He rubbed his face, trying to cover his mouth. “It’s just – when you get all ranty like that, sometimes you sound just like Z – um.” 

Keef cut himself off before the full word, but the laughter died in his throat as he saw Dib tense, the movement of his pencil scribbling to a stop. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like…”

“What are you sorry for?” Dib set down his pencil and lifted his chin, his expression hardening, challenging. “What do you think’s gonna happen – I’ll fly into a murderous rage if you so much as mention his name? Think you’ll be next?” He chuckled, bitter, devoid of any joy. “You know, I don’t give a shit that everyone thinks I’m crazy. I’m done trying – why should I even care if everyone in this skool – on this  _ planet _ – is happier in their own little bubble, like you, blissfully ignorant to reality? But knowing that they think I’m a – that I actually…” His voice cracked, like something inside him was breaking, but then he sighed, looking back down at his sketch. “Forget it. I didn’t kill Zim. But why should that matter? It’s not like anyone around here is ever interested in the  _ truth _ anyway, right?”

Keef didn’t know what to say – or if he should say anything at all, the tension in the air thick enough to cut. Should he tell Dib he  _ did _ care about the truth? Even if he didn’t know what the truth was? But at least he knew one thing:

“I don’t think you killed him.”

Dib’s head jerked up as he blinked in bewilderment, as if that was the last thing he expected to hear. “You...don’t?”

“Nope!” Keef smiled, pretty certain now that he was on the right track. “You miss him.”

That got a much stronger reaction; Dib recoiled in his seat as if he’d been shot at, his pale cheeks flaring an angry pink. “I–no! It wasn’t like – ugh, why would I expect  _ you _ to understand? It was supposed to be  _ me! _ I should’ve been the one to expose him, save the world, show you all the truth – but instead, he just...goes, without a word, just like that? I  _ know _ Zim, this isn’t right, he doesn’t do this!” He dragged his fingers through his hair in despair, clutching at it as though he could somehow pry the answers out from his own head. “This can’t be  _ it _ – I can’t have wasted six years of my life just for everyone to not only think I’m crazy but some kind of psychopathic  _ murderer,  _ and I don’t even know where he went, why he went, if he’s coming back – not that I want him to come back! Because I  _ don’t! _ This just wasn’t...” Losing momentum, he trailed off, hands falling back to his sides as he let out a long, deflated, defeated sigh. It was like he’d forgotten Keef was there, or he just didn’t care anymore.

“He wasn’t supposed to leave me.” 

The words were soft, barely above a whisper – but Keef  _ felt _ them, propelling him to shift across the sofa to reach out, gently laying a hand on Dib’s arm; he jumped as though a bug had landed on it. “It’s okay to miss him! I miss him, too. I bet he even misses you.”

Dib scoffed, shrugging off his hand, although not quite as violently as Zim probably would have done. 

“Maybe you missed this over there in Keefland, but Zim hated me. He tried to  _ kill _ me more times than I can count! We were –”

“Enemies, I know – but he  _ liked _ hating you. You guys always looked like you were having fun. Like that giant water balloon fight!” Keef had always secretly wanted to join them. 

“I…” Dib frowned, looking for a second like he was about to argue, but, Keef saw hope in the faint smile, twitching and creeping its way onto Dib’s face. “Yeah, I guess that  _ was _ kinda fun.” 

“And if it helps, I don’t think you’re crazy – okay, maybe a little crazy – but like, fun crazy, not murder crazy. You know what?” Keef barely paused to take a breath between sentences – he was on a roll. “Your head’s not even that big!”

Dib raised his eyebrows – and then he  _ snorted _ , and it was like sunshine breaking through grey skies. “Right?!” he exclaimed. “It’s  _ proportionate _ ! I’ve measured it! How did that even become a thing?”

“ _ Perfectly _ proportionate!” Keef nodded like a bobblehead, giggling a little with a bubbly mix of relief and pride in making him smile. “Your head is so valid. You’re more than enough. It’s a great head just the way it–”

“Okay, okay – you can stop now, it’s getting weird,” Dib cut him off, though he was still snickering a little, traces of pink lingering on his cheeks as he reached for his sketchbook again. It suited him, in Keef’s opinion. “Can we get back to work already? I can’t afford to give Ms Bitters an excuse to fail me.”

* * *

Little by little, the project was taking shape. Keef was getting to know Dib and his face; the little wrinkle between his brows when he was concentrating hard, the sharp lines of his cheekbones, the flash of inspiration behind his glasses that sometimes made him look like an excited kid and other times like a mad scientist, depending on the light. 

They weren’t best friends; they didn’t sit together at lunchtime, but if Keef waved to Dib from the loser’s table he might nod back at him, on his way to sit with his ( _ actually _ scary) sister. And they would never go to the circus together, because of Dib’s theory that clowns were a sinister race of aliens that literally ate the smiles off of their victims’ faces. But Keef was sure that they were at least friends: Dib would  _ sometimes _ let Keef walk home with him if Gaz walked ahead! The old Keef might have happily invited himself inside the Membrane house without a second thought; new (and improved!) Keef, however, had read stuff on the internet about  _ boundaries _ , and assured Dib that he wouldn’t just barge in because consent was important, and that he respected his space. 

“Uh, thanks, I think.” Dib gave him an ‘I can’t figure out if you’re for real or not’ look before opening the door. “It’s not a big deal, man, just come in. What was that thing you said about ‘capturing the subject in its natural habitat?’”

Dib’s room was a lot like himself: messy, overflowing with ideas, kind of dark, and occasionally disturbing. If you looked closer, though, there was an order to all of the chaos. There was a purpose behind the piles of notes that littered his desk, and the loose robot pieces strewn about the room. Even the seemingly random newspaper clippings taped to the walls were there for a reason, part of some convoluted conspiracy. There was one thing, though, that really stood out to Keef: the sheer amount of Zim. Photos, drawings, scribbled speculations about schemes, spaceships, and “Irken anatomy/weaknesses” – everywhere he turned, Dib’s former nemesis’ presence was inescapable, haunting the room like the ghost of skool days past. 

“Those are old!” Dib quickly moved in front of his alien biology drawing before Keef could look too closely; he caught a glimpse of tentacles. Lots of tentacles. “I just haven’t gotten around to taking them down…” 

The whole wall – the whole _room_ was like his own personal Zim-museum, plastered with shots of Zim at skool, Zim ordering tacos, Zim on his sofa watching TV, Zim lying in a puddle and – writhing in agony...?

“Awww, this one’s cute.” Keef smiled as he pointed to a photo of Zim on a park bench, licking an ice cream cone; GIR sat next to him, holding his own lead in his mouth. They looked happy. “You have a good eye!”

“It’s not supposed to be  _ cute!”  _ Dib grabbed the photo, pulling it from the wall; he gripped it like he was going to tear it in half, but instead just stared at the static, smiling Zim for a moment, something flickering across his features that Keef couldn’t quite place. He stuck it back where it was before looking back to Keef. “...But, thanks. I’ve been taking pictures since I was a kid – of any and all unusual phenomena. In the paranormal investigating arena, you gotta start developing your skills early. It’s all about stealth and precision.” 

The shot next to it was a blur of green and pink, mostly of Zim’s tongue and what could be seen of his face twisted in fury. GIR waved in the background. 

“It shows.” Keef followed the painstakingly laid out timeline: Zim through the years, right up until his mysterious disappearance. After that it tapered off into what were clearly theories, a bunch of torn-out pages covered in Dib’s increasingly illegible scribbles and connected by a tangle of red string. “At least I’m not the only one who wondered what happened to Zim.”

Dib’s eyes widened when Keef glanced back at him with a knowing but  sympathetic smile, making him look briefly guilty, but then he nodded.

“Yeah…Obviously, I went to check out his base – where it used to be – but he didn’t leave so much as a trace. He could be anywhere, like literally anywhere in the universe! If I could figure out a way of tracing his ship’s signal…” Dib was off in his own world, muttering to himself and tapping his fingers on the desk while Keef squinted at the newspaper clippings (they’d expanded beyond Zim now to something about chicken feet).

Suddenly, Dib spun around in his chair, fast enough to make Keef jump. 

“Wait! You – your eyes! Zim replaced them, right?” Inspiration flashed across Dib’s face like lightning: dazzling, spontaneous and just a little alarming when it caught you unawares. He scooted towards Keef in his chair. “What if he can  _ see _ us through you?”

“Um, I don’t kn _ ow–!”  _ Keef was about to ask how Dib even knew about that, but all that escaped him was a squeaky yelp as Dib pounced, leaping out of his chair to grab Keef by the shoulders and push him down onto his bed. Whatever words he might have said caught in his throat when Dib took hold of his chin – not exactly gentle, but not painful either, just tilting it up so he could gaze intently into his eyes. 

Keef could only manage a slightly nervous kind of grin, his stomach doing somersaults as Dib’s fiercely focused gaze practically burned into his own, as though he was trying to see into Keef’s very soul. No one had ever looked at him like that before, with such laser-focused intensity, like he held the key to all of the universe’s questions; he felt so exposed, vulnerable under the spotlight of Dib’s undivided attention. A tiny part of him wanted to duck and hide, but he just went still and pliant, letting Dib examine him, hoping he’d find whatever it was he was so desperately searching for.

He leaned in closer, so gradually that Keef almost didn’t notice until he could count the smattering of freckles on Dib’s nose. The faintest tickle of his breath on his lips made him shiver; if either of them moved their heads, just a fraction, they’d be – 

“No, forget it, that’s not gonna work.” The light in Dib’s eyes dimmed; he let Keef go, slumping back in his chair, disappointment clouding his face. “I guess it would probably be unethical to remove your eyes – again…”

Keef managed a giggle, though he wasn’t entirely sure whether Dib was kidding – it was hard to tell with him sometimes. “Y-yeah, I’m kinda attached to them.” His face felt too hot, and the words came out wrong, like he’d forgotten how to speak. Like his brain was still catching up, trying to process what had just happened – but nothing had happened, had it? “Sorry,” he managed.

Dib shrugged. “You can’t help it. You’re just Keef.”

He wasn’t trying to be mean. It shouldn’t have hurt. That simple statement of fact shouldn’t have shot straight through Keef’s chest, the truth squeezing tight around his heart until he couldn’t breathe.

Dib was never looking at  _ him _ . All of that twisted, conflicted yearning – it wasn’t for Keef. It was all for Zim. When Dib stared deep into Keef’s eyes, into his very  _ soul _ , Zim was the one he was hoping to find. Dib had only ever been for Zim, hadn’t he? Just like how Zim only ever came alive for Dib, but neither of them had figured it out. It was funny, in a sad kind of way. Keef tried to smile.

Why would Dib look at  _ him _ that way? He wasn’t special, he wasn't exciting, he wasn’t Zim. He was just...there. Just Keef.

“That’s my name…” He smiled through slightly gritted teeth, averting his eyes from Dib’s and back to the safety of his sketchbook. Picking up his pencil, he clapped his hands together, eternally, painfully cheerful. “Anyway! Better get back to this project, you’re not gonna draw yourself! I mean, you could, but I’m supposed to...heh, you know what I mean.” This was fine, wasn’t it? They were fine. They were  _ friends _ . “Hold that pose – yeah! That looks cool.”

Keef’s mom used to say that he was special because he saw the best in everyone. He really did believe that everyone had some good in them, if you gave them a chance, and he liked just about everyone at skool, even the mean kids. He still liked Zim, even after he ripped his eyes out. He liked Dib, even after everyone said he was a psycho or worse; he really was a great subject, sitting in the spinny chair with one leg crossed over the other, his hands steepled under his chin and his lower lip caught between his teeth. A unique blend of harsh and soft lines, moody lighting, angular features, half-hidden in the shadows – but despite all his attempts to look cool and mysterious, there was a vulnerability in his eyes glasses couldn’t quite conceal. For all of the fierce determination that had burned in his gaze just moments before, now something about him seemed almost...lost, adrift in the galaxy of endless questions laid out on his walls, desperately searching for answers. Silently pleading for something (someone) to give him purpose again. 

And Keef –  _ he _ wanted to be Dib’s purpose, the invisible hand around his heart squeezing again with the realization. He wanted to be the one who got to see him smile and make him laugh. He wanted to be there for him, and listen to him, and appreciate him, and tell him how  _ special  _ he truly was. He wanted to be what Dib  _ needed _ .

He wasn’t, but maybe it would hurt less if he could still help him find it.

“So here’s a crazy idea,” he started, shading in the hollow of Dib’s cheekbone. “We should go look for Zim.”

That seemed to jolt Dib back to Earth. “We?” He blinked, his eyes snapping back to Keef’s. “There’s no point looking for him anywhere except...well, space. And I somehow doubt that you wanna squish into my ship and–“

“Of  _ course _ I do!” Keef clasped his hands to his heart, starry-eyed with a surge of renewed hope. “C’mon, Dib! Who  _ wouldn’t _ wanna sail amongst the stars, and see things beyond their wildest dreams, on a potentially fatal mission into the great unknown?!”

Dib raised an eyebrow, eyeing Keef suspiciously as though  _ he  _ was the one talking crazy. “Literally everyone.  _ Ever _ . No one believes that I even have a ship, or that Zim is…” He trailed off, eyes widening in disbelief; Keef’s heart skipped a beat. Dib had the expression of someone who had never been believed in before, not once in his life. 

“Wait. Are you saying you actually – ”

“I believe you, Dib.” Keef held his gaze, his quiet but unwavering earnestness leaving no room for doubt or the possibility of ulterior motives. Just the truth.

It had taken Keef a while – of course he believed Zim at first, surely he wouldn’t lie to his  _ best friend _ , and everyone always said Dib was crazy. The more he actually listened to Dib, though, the more it all started to add up. Maybe he had been right all along, and Zim  _ was _ an alien – but did that even matter? All the other stuff, the important stuff – the feelings – those were all real. Watching the emotions play out across Dib’s face – from shock to disbelief to pure and genuine  _ joy _ , brilliant and beautiful like the dawning of the sun over a new horizon – was all the proof Keef needed, as he continued: “I know I’m not a genius like you, but even I noticed Zim was... _ different _ . Not that that justified how mean you were to him–”

“ _ I  _ was mean?! He was trying to destroy us all! He literally harvested people’s organs! He  _ tore your eyes out – ” _

“But we still want him back!”

“...Dude, shut  _ up _ .” Dib covered his face with his hands, huffing out an odd wheezy noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh. Keef felt that squeeze in his chest again; it still hurt, but it was also kind of satisfying. He felt lucky, getting to glimpse behind the facade of mystery and menace to see the real Dib – still stubborn, always complicated, but also just kind of a dork. In the best possible way. “I – you – you’re really weird, you know that?” 

“I know!” Keef didn’t even try to fight the giggles bubbling out of him; they felt right, easing the tightness in his chest. “It’s fun, right? Way more fun than being normal.”

Dib shook his head, more in disbelief than disagreement, as he smoothed back his unruly hair and attempted a poker-face. His smile ultimately betrayed him, though – sure, it was awkward, bewildered, conflicted even, but it was a real smile. A smile that, for once, was all for Keef. “Yeah. I guess it is.” 

“Sooo…” Keef leaned forwards with his best puppy eyes, bouncing a little on the bed as he held his arms out. “Space buddies hug?”

“I never said we were–”

Unable to contain his excitement any longer, Keef hopped off of the bed and wrapped his arms around Dib before he could finish his protest. But he didn’t push Keef away either; for a moment or two he just stood there in shock, arms pinned to his sides, like no one had ever hugged him before. Eventually, he shifted to return the hug, a brief, almost shy squeeze that made Keef feel warm all over.

This was nice, just to hold him and be held.  Maybe it wasn’t everything he wanted, but it was enough. More than enough.

“Is that enough hugging now?” 

Keef grinned and patted Dib on the back as he let him go. “You did good! I can tell you’re not a natural hugger, but that’s okay. We have plenty of time to practice before we find Zim and have a group hug.” 

Dib scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Sure.  _ That’ll _ happen.”

But there was something in his eyes Keef hadn’t seen for a long time: life. A small spark, a flicker of a promise to ignite something brighter and more brilliant beyond either of their wildest dreams; maybe even  _ Zim’s _ wildest dreams. Keef was tempted to grab his sketchbook again, but he wasn’t sure if he could ever really do this pose justice.

From where he was standing, it looked a lot like hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback is always very much appreciated <3


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